A Real Test Of Faith
Sermon
Life Everlasting
The Essential Book of Funeral Resources
Object:
For a Christian suicide
A Real Test Of Faith
Job 19:23-27; Isaiah 53:2-6; Romans 3:21-26; 5:1-11
This task is literally a real test of faith. In some ways, there's nothing harder than to come to a place like this to say good-bye to someone who's taken his own life.
I've read a lot of funeral sermons meant for circumstances such as this, and most of them don't work. It's as I said before, this task is literally a test of faith.
Of course, suicide is an irrational act, a desperate way of seeking relief from terrible pain or great depression. And of course, we have to deal with our own feelings of anger, guilt, and rejection, but we have to deal with them in the context of a caring God.
"For I know that my Redeemer lives," Job said, "and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God...."
The redeemer whom Job talks about is not God, but someone who pleads Job's case before the living God. What that person does for Job, I hope to do for you. That person puts the focus on the living God.
No matter who we are, we cannot save ourselves. "... [S]ince all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus," Paul says.
We know that in our hearts, I guess. We know, as Paul says, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," but still we want to think we can earn our own salvation.
The issue isn't what we've done. None of us deserves God's grace or reconciliation. The issue is, instead, what God has done for us.
Nowhere in either of the passages from Romans does the great apostle say we can earn our way to heaven. We have been redeemed, bought back, Paul says, to show the righteousness of God.
Yet we are troubled here today, I'm sure, troubled by the mode of Bill's death, but the fact is we ourselves are no more deserving of inclusion in God's love than Bill is, and if we can be included, so can he.
It's not that we can say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," for Bill or for ourselves. All humans sin. All fall short of God's glory and God's expectation. Surely we all have our bewilderment, our guilt, our anger.
And it's not that I would, through my words, imply suicide somehow becomes acceptable because of God.
It is God who saves, and it is God's righteousness we need to stress today.
''Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows," Isaiah says of Israel -- God's suffering servant -- and we take those words to apply to Jesus.
"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted."
"But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole...."
Or as Paul puts it, "Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God."
We are reconciled -- made one in peace -- with God through Jesus, and that is true for Bill and all of us.
Again, it's as I said before. This task is a real test of faith -- our faith in the righteousness of God.
"For I know that my Redeemer lives," Job says, and now we know that for us the redeemer in those words is not really someone weak like me. The Redeemer is God's Son, the Christ, through whose blood sinners can be justified -- made right with God.
Let us pray. Almighty and loving God, strengthen our faith. Lead us to understand that you and you alone are righteous. You and you alone can save. Then help us, in our own sinfulness, to find our hope and place our trust in you.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
(Reprinted from "About A Loving God," CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio 45804, © 1991.)
A Real Test Of Faith
Job 19:23-27; Isaiah 53:2-6; Romans 3:21-26; 5:1-11
This task is literally a real test of faith. In some ways, there's nothing harder than to come to a place like this to say good-bye to someone who's taken his own life.
I've read a lot of funeral sermons meant for circumstances such as this, and most of them don't work. It's as I said before, this task is literally a test of faith.
Of course, suicide is an irrational act, a desperate way of seeking relief from terrible pain or great depression. And of course, we have to deal with our own feelings of anger, guilt, and rejection, but we have to deal with them in the context of a caring God.
"For I know that my Redeemer lives," Job said, "and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God...."
The redeemer whom Job talks about is not God, but someone who pleads Job's case before the living God. What that person does for Job, I hope to do for you. That person puts the focus on the living God.
No matter who we are, we cannot save ourselves. "... [S]ince all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus," Paul says.
We know that in our hearts, I guess. We know, as Paul says, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," but still we want to think we can earn our own salvation.
The issue isn't what we've done. None of us deserves God's grace or reconciliation. The issue is, instead, what God has done for us.
Nowhere in either of the passages from Romans does the great apostle say we can earn our way to heaven. We have been redeemed, bought back, Paul says, to show the righteousness of God.
Yet we are troubled here today, I'm sure, troubled by the mode of Bill's death, but the fact is we ourselves are no more deserving of inclusion in God's love than Bill is, and if we can be included, so can he.
It's not that we can say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," for Bill or for ourselves. All humans sin. All fall short of God's glory and God's expectation. Surely we all have our bewilderment, our guilt, our anger.
And it's not that I would, through my words, imply suicide somehow becomes acceptable because of God.
It is God who saves, and it is God's righteousness we need to stress today.
''Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows," Isaiah says of Israel -- God's suffering servant -- and we take those words to apply to Jesus.
"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted."
"But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole...."
Or as Paul puts it, "Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God."
We are reconciled -- made one in peace -- with God through Jesus, and that is true for Bill and all of us.
Again, it's as I said before. This task is a real test of faith -- our faith in the righteousness of God.
"For I know that my Redeemer lives," Job says, and now we know that for us the redeemer in those words is not really someone weak like me. The Redeemer is God's Son, the Christ, through whose blood sinners can be justified -- made right with God.
Let us pray. Almighty and loving God, strengthen our faith. Lead us to understand that you and you alone are righteous. You and you alone can save. Then help us, in our own sinfulness, to find our hope and place our trust in you.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
(Reprinted from "About A Loving God," CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio 45804, © 1991.)
